To achieve a more youthful eyelid appearance, an adhesive eye strip can be placed on the upper eyelid of a user to tuck and hold droopy upper eyelid skin in its youthful position. One side of the strip is convex and is placed toward the back of the upper eyelid in order to recreate the person's natural eyelid crease, causing the eyelid skin to assume a more youthful position and not droop toward or over the border of the upper lid. More details about adhesive eye strips as referred to in the present application can be found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,190,346 and 6,193,741, the entire contents of which are incorporated by reference herein. One example of an adhesive eye strip includes a small adhesive strip with one straight edge and one convex edge, the strip having an overall midline length of approximately 25 mm, and a width of about 5 mm wide at its midpoint, and a width of about 1.7 mm at each of its rounded ends. Any type of adhesive eye strip may be used with the removal mechanism of the present invention.
The adhesive eye strip can achieve its desired function only if it can be placed properly on the eyelid by the user. The most difficult challenge in doing so is removing the small, thin, adhesive coated strip from its backing material, first without damaging it and second, in a manner that enables lifting the strip off the backing material with the proper orientation for application. In order to have the greatest ease in orienting the strip properly on the eyelid it is preferable to be able to pick one end of it off the backing material between the user's thumb and index finger of their left or right hand, whichever is preferred.
Each eye strip consists of a thin and flexible or very flexible material coated with an adhesive layer (in one example, the total strip thickness is approximately 0.004 inches) and adhered to a backing material having a release coating. Due to the thinness of the strip material and adhesive coating and the small size of each end, it is difficult to remove it from its backing material without damaging it. Often, strip removal from the backing material using one's fingernail to pry up one end of the strip causes it to fold under and adhere to itself (adhesive to adhesive) rendering the strip useless or causing an upward curling of the end making placement more difficult and making it less likely to adhere to the skin.